A site currently promoting awareness and debate of how the poorest students in Scotland face the highest government debts: "seems to return to this issue again and again…. " Michael Russell, former Cabinet Secretary for Education, April 2014

Evidence to Education Committee inquiry into student funding

This is the evidence I have submitted to the Education Committee’s current inquiry into student funding. Much of it will be familiar to regular readers of this site.Evidence to Ed Cttee October 2015

Evidence submitted to the Committee is being put up on its site: see here.

As of this evening, there are multiple submissions (a) noting the reduction in bursaries in 2013, (b) identifying as problematic the relatively high dependency on debt to provide living cost support at low incomes and the long-term unfairness of student loan debt being carried disproportionately by the poorest and (c) arguing for grants to be increased.

Making these points has often felt like an isolated, not to say exposed, activity over the two and a half years since this blog was first set up: to see them now being taken forward by others in submissions to the Parliament is immensely welcome. Perhaps we are turning a corner in the way we talk about student funding in Scotland.

Anyone interested in this area should have a look at this body of submissions, which though still relatively small in number (there may be more to come) are surely the most extensive set of comments gathered publicly on student funding since the last Scottish Government consultation in 2010. There are also substantial submissions on particular groups, especially those with experience of care. Many of the submissions refer to other material known to or gathered by the organisations responding, adding to the value of what’s here.